


In a deli in NYC

by china_shop



Category: Fandom RPF, White Collar
Genre: Crack, Fluff, Gen, Llamas, Meddling fangirls, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4524273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Albuquerque is inadvertently helpful, I cause trouble and mergatrude fixes it. (A post-cruiseliner crackfic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a deli in NYC

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the [cruiseliner 'verse](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Cruiseliner), but should be more or less comprehensible without prior knowledge of the 'verse. As the title suggests, mergatrude and I land up in New York with Albuquerque, mergatrude's animatronic llama.
> 
> I posted this to DW/LJ in 2010. Archiving now for completeness.

We're sitting at a table by the window in the deli. Albuquerque is browsing the salad bar, and you and I are watching her with some consternation.

"Do you think we could persuade her to take off her sunglasses?" I ask. "Doesn't she realise we're in the northern hemisphere now?"

"I'm more worried about her spitting in the food," you say, and you try to lure her over with almond biscotti, but she flicks her ears and moves on to perusing the shelf of gourmet chocolate.

I'm about to suggest we offer her a piece of Stetson brim (I was forward-thinking enough to bring a few pieces), when the bell over the door rings and a familiar be-hatted figure saunters in and heads straight for the counter. He leans casually (and beautifully) next to the no-smoking sign on the wall and waits for Mozzie to finish serving a couple of customers, who both start giggling for no obvious reason. Well. Sort of.

I stare helplessly. "Oh my god."

"I know," you say. "How is that even possible?"

"Prettier than the photos." I'm embarrassed by how much that sounds like a whimper. "I'm a Peter girl. I prefer Peter. But. Oh. My. God."

I drag my gaze away long enough to discover I'm not the only one with lust in their eyes. Pretty much everyone in the deli is gawping, with greater or lesser degrees of subtlety. Even Albuquerque seems distracted from the chocolate (so there's that at least). My eyes are drawn back, almost against my will -- maybe there's some kind of visual/magnetic vortex at play? -- and after a while, I start to feel dizzy and my eyes sting, and I realise I haven't been breathing or blinking. It's probably only luck that my heart didn't stop.

I kickstart my autonomic functions and turn to you.

You're still staring towards the counter. You look somewhat dazed, but your eyes are narrowed in suspicion.

I nudge your ankle with my foot. "What?"

"He seems overly perky," you say slowly, without shifting your gaze. "I think he's up to something."

I frown. "But-- Is he still on parole, do you think? What year are we in?"

"I'm not sure." You instinctively look at your watch, which is no help at all, and then blush when I raise my eyebrows. "It's daylight savings throwing me off."

"Sure," I say. "It has nothing at all to do with the eye candy."

"He's not just eye candy," you mutter. "He's like the visual equivalent of gourmet chocolate raspberry mud cake with fresh fruit and--"

"I know!" I interrupt. "Stop it, or I'm going to clean out their desserts and then throw myself at him, and we'll have to leave in disgrace."

"Yeah, I don't think this is one of those stories," you say firmly. "Behave yourself."

"I'm trying." I take a drink of my soy hot chocolate. "So, assuming he's still on parole -- or even if he isn't -- if he's up to something dodgy, that's a bad idea, right? We should do something."

"Like what?"

Albuquerque apparently decides Neal isn't edible and belatedly ambles over to investigate the biscotti. You rub her whiffly nose absent-mindedly, and that gives me an idea. "Albuquerque has a built-in microphone!" I hiss excitedly. "We just need to get the receiver and we can use her as a bug to eavesdrop on them."

You give me a reproving look. "A) It's rude to eavesdrop. B) I'm not I'm comfortable with you using Albuquerque as an unwitting accomplice. And C) stop looking so excited. You know your plans never end well!"

"This isn't a plan," I protest quickly. "It's a counter-plan. We're trying to stop Neal from making a terrible mistake that will get him into hot water, from which Peter will have to rescue him, thus jeopardising Neal's freedom, Peter's job and El's peace of mind. Also it would make Satchmo sad if Neal went back to prison. We are _honour-bound_ to intervene, don't you see? It's our destiny!"

"No," you say. "Neal's incorrigible, but you're worse, and we always end up out of our depth, and something bad always happens to Albuquerque. I'm not playing this time. I just want to enjoy my SHC and then go to Central Park Zoo to see the penguins."

"It wouldn't hurt to just find out?" I say hopefully. "Maybe it's nothing -- maybe he's planning a surprise party for Peter! -- and then I can stop feeling itchy and worried that I should have done something."

I look pleadingly at you until you roll your eyes. "Fine. You can listen in for two minutes, but you're not allowed to do anything. At _most_ you can make an anonymous call to Peter and tip him off, but that's it. No llama re-adjustments, no 'accidentally' tripping people up, no engineering of any kind, social or llama-related. I mean it."

I bite my lip. "Okay."

I don't know whether I'm actually going to be able to restrain myself if things are looking bad, but I'm pretty sure I can chip away at your resolve with enough time and cheesecake. I think you're mostly just missing the cruiseliner and it's making you a little cranky and OOC.

"The receiver's her right ear," I say.

You level your gaze at me. " _In_ her right ear?"

"No-oo," I say guiltily. "It's kind of -- it is her right ear. I didn't anticipate this and, well, sorry?" You look like you're about to back out, so I lean across and grab Albuquerque's ear and twist, and it comes off in my hand. "It's okay -- it reattaches really easily. I promise."

You take a deep breath and then grin at me. "You really are hopeless, you know that? I mean, I'm just taking a moment to revel in the irony of _you_ meddling in Neal's plans. You're as bad as each other."

"Except that his plans usually work," I point out, and then distract you before you start worrying about Albuquerque again. "Send her to the counter, quick while they're still talking."

You pat her nose. "You can't _send_ Albuquerque anywhere, you know that! You have to lure. And don't you think someone will notice she's missing an ear?"

"They won't." Neal and Mozzie are deep in conversation, bent over a roll of paper on the counter, keeping their voices low. "Just do it."

Somehow you get Albuquerque to mooch over to the counter and blink her long eyelashes at the menu board on the wall. Her left ear swivels toward Neal, and I hold her right ear up to mine like a seashell.

"--going to need a glasscutter," I hear Neal say.

"Alex has one," says Mozzie. "Why is that llama missing an ear?"

"Will you focus, Moz?" Neal sounds a little annoyed. Maybe it's daylight savings here too? "We're planning to steal a bear from the New York Public Library and you're worried about llamas? Here, roll up the blueprints before someone sees."

I stare at you in horror. "Oh no."

"What?" You can't hear what they're saying. "What is it?"

"I think I know what they're going to steal."

\--

**china:** So what happens next? Do we rat Neal out to Peter and go to the zoo? Do we stake out the library? Do we follow Neal around because we can't help ourselves?

 **mergatrude:** I think I am going to allow you to call Peter and then drag you off to the zoo. I am feeling overly-sensitive still, from all the cruiseliner mishaps and am hoping there's no New York equivalent of the vehicle deck, and that aliens aren't watching White Collar. /o\

I am SURE, though, you are going to get us into trouble. *packs a few muffins to sustain us*

 **china:** Oh ye of little faith.

(Um, how are we going to call Peter? Neither of us have phones that work in the US, and it's not like Mozzie's going to let us use the deli phone, even if we did have his number. Um?)

 **mergatrude:** There are public phones, aren't there? Maybe we could follow Neal for a bit, and when he discards a mobile phone used as part of his con, we can pick it up, wipe the gunge off it, and call Peter. Probably by pressing redial.

But then they might swoop in and arrest us and we would spend hours trying to explain how we got the phone and what we're doing in the country and why don't we have visas and an import licence for the llama and and and

Can't you use Albuquerque to make phone calls?

 **china:** YOU ARE SO SMART!

\--

"I want a voice disguiser," I mutter as the phone rings.

"It's not like he's going to recognise your voice," you say reassuringly.

I can't reply because Peter's saying, "Burke here," in my ear.

"I--" My face heats up, and I glance nervously toward the counter, where Neal's talking in a concentrated undertone and Mozzie's giving us a non-specific suspicious look. I studiously ignore Albuquerque so as not to be tainted by association, forgetting that I'm talking into one of her (detached) ears. Yeah, that's not suspect at all.

"Who is this?" asks Peter.

"No one," I say quickly. "I just thought you should know that Neal's planning to steal Winnie the Pooh from the New York Public Library, and you have to stop him so he doesn't get in trouble."

"Neal who? Are you talking about Neal Caffrey?" Peter sounds startled and a bit grim. "Who _is_ this?"

"A well-wisher?" I squeak and hang up. I look at you and get that sinking feeling in my stomach that tells me I've done something terribly horribly wrong. "I think we should go to the zoo now."

You tilt your head and study me. "What is it?"

"Nothing," I lie. "Um, I'm not sure this is a timeline where Neal and Peter are working together. I mean, it probably is, but--"

"But?" Your eyebrows scrunch together.

"Well, Peter sounded kind of -- surprised. When I mentioned Neal. Like, maybe they don't know each other that well yet. I don't know let's go to the zoo and pretend this never happened okay?" I grab my jacket and my bag, and twist Albuquerque's ear back into place.

But when I turn to hurry you along, you're frozen in place, looking over my shoulder. I follow your gaze to find Neal and Mozzie are standing right behind me. Mozzie's even managing to look a bit threatening, but Neal has that loose, casual stance that means he's about to con us, I think.

"Who were you just talking to?" asks Mozzie.

Neal casts him a flicker of a frown, and gives us both a knee-weakeningly charming smile. "Hai. I'm Nick Halden. Can I buy you ladies a drink?"

You pull a face, and I know what you mean. Con-artist!Neal isn't my type either. I prefer him when he's stealing plastic prizes out of cereal boxes.

"We were talking to each other," you tell Mozzie firmly, and you get up and hustle me out of the deli before they can stop us. "Well, that went well."

I wince at the sarcasm, but you're right. I think I just made things worse. "Imagine if Peter catches Neal and puts him in prison! It would be all my fault! How long do you think he'd get for bear-napping?"

"What you should be asking is 'what else do the FBI have on him?'" you say. "But it's done now. Neal Caffrey's perfectly capable of evading arrest--"

"Most of the time," I interject.

"--and there's nothing we can do about it now. You didn't give Peter a time or place, so--" You shrug. "It'll be fine."

"Yeeeah." I kick my toe against the pavement for a moment, then follow you and Albuquerque up Fifth Avenue towards the zoo.

\--

We're looking at the penguins when Mozzie finds us. I'm actually kind of relieved Neal didn't come too -- the dazzling prettiness combined with the impulse to con us kind of fries my brain, whereas Mozzie is Mozzie. Too smart and too paranoid, but not expecting any real response from us, bless him.

"What did you do?" he asks me, apparently having already figured out that I'm the inveterate busybody and you're the long-suffering sane one.

I dither for a moment, glance at you, and then confess. "I called the FBI about the bear job. It was kind of a mistake. I thought Peter Burke and Neal were friends, and Peter would want to--"

Mozzie takes a step forward and makes hushing gestures, while glancing around wildly. "You mention the Man in public, you must know their spies are going to tune in and record everything you say, to use against you. Don't you have any sense of discretion or self-preservation?"

"She doesn't," you say sadly. "No discretion, no sense, no foresight."

I try to feel aggrieved, but actually, that's fair. I shrug helplessly. "There are other universes where Neal and -- the Suits -- are working together. They like each other."

"Neal Caffrey working for the Government of his own free will?" Mozzie's eyes boggle behind his glasses.

My nose wrinkles before I can stop it. "Uh, not exactly. No."

"Ah-ha!" Mozzie raises a finger in the air. "I knew it. This is a ploy to get me to betray my friend. You're one of them!"

"She's really really not," you say. Albuquerque comes up behind us and hums her agreement.

I nod. "I don't think they'd have me. I used to flat with communists."

You pat my shoulder. "You wouldn't like it, anyway. Too many guns." Then you turn to Mozzie and seem to grow a couple of inches. "Look, we've warned you about the Feds. If Neal goes ahead with the bear job, there's every chance they'll catch him, so you should tell him to forget it. That's it. We're going. We have some alpacas to visit."

You lead me away, and I go willingly. I really don't want to mess with this timeline. Much. Well, maybe if we could get Neal and Peter and Elizabeth together _socially_ , but I definitely don't want to be the reason Neal lands in prison.

"Oh, hey, I wonder whether Kate's still around in this universe," I say idly, and you give me a Look.

"If you start plotting things, I'm taking Albuquerque and going back to the cruiseliner." You sound determined.

I stop walking and wilt a little. "But what if this is a universe without a happy ending?" I whine.

"Peter has Elizabeth, and Neal has Mozzie and probably Kate, and for all we know, Alex too." You grab my arm and drag me along the path to the alpacas. "And you know if you start trying to orchestrate anything, it'll end in disaster and camelid dismemberment. So just don't."

I sigh deeply but I know you're right. "Okay." I shove my hands in my pocket. "Oh, but, hey. I can still write stories about them, right? I mean, fiction?"

Your suspicious look would do Mozzie proud. "What level of fiction?"

"Um." I try not to look too evasive. "The kind that doesn't have us in it?"

And that must be the right answer, because you relax and say yes, and after we've been to the alpaca enclosure and seen the star-nosed moles, I buy you an apologetic apple/mango/banana juice and you tease me a little for putting slashes in there, as if it's fruit porn in a glass. Albuquerque eats my sandwich, of course, and we're on holiday, and everything's okay.

\--

 **mergatrude:** Next week, we run into the kids from FAME!


End file.
